Terrific trekking with Himalaya Journey Treks and Expedition

Terrific trekking with Himalaya Journey Treks and Expedition

Terrific trekking with Himalaya Journey Treks and Expedition

You'll have a fantastic trek with this company.

My husband and I (in our early 60s and late 50s respectively) recently travelled to India and then Nepal. We planned on being in Nepal for only a short time and wanted to do a trek while there. We emailed a few Nepal-based trekking companies recommended in Lonely Planet. We were interested in a trek that was about 5 days at a fairly low elevation as we didn’t have much time to acclimatize and I was worried about altitude sickness (having experienced it once before). One of the companies we contacted was Himalaya Journey Treks & Expedition Ltd. We liked the email responses that we received from Ram Pahari, the managing director. He responded quickly and provided us with a good choice of short treks that could fit our schedule. On the basis of his email responses, we decided to ask Ram and his company to arrange our trek and stay in Nepal. We’re very glad that we made that decision.

Except for our air travel to and from Nepal, Ram made all of our Nepal travel arrangements. These included picking us up at the Kathmandu airport on our arrival and taking us back there on our departure, booking the hotels that we requested in Kathmandu and Pokara, arranging travel from Kathmandu to Pokara and return (private vehicle going and air returning), arranging a mountain flight to see Mount Everest, providing us with a private guided tour of some of the main sights around Kathmandu (with Muni, a very knowledgeable and pleasant guide), and most important for us, arranging our 5-day Poon Hill trek in the Annapurna area close to Pokara. All arrangements were just as we expected from Ram’s emails. To get our Nepal visit off to a good start, on arriving in Kathmandu, Ram arranged for us to meet with him in his office where he reviewed the arrangements he’d made for us and all aspects of our stay in Nepal including what we could expect on our trek. Our meeting also gave us an opportunity to ask Ram the questions we still had about the trek. It quickly became apparent to us that Ram and his company were very experienced, very organized and very professional. We were also touched by the flower garlands that we received on our arrival at the airport, and our dinner with Ram on our last evening in Nepal and his personal farewell on our departure.

The trek itself was the highlight of our trip to India and Nepal. We had our own guide, Ramesh, and porter, Asal Man. Both had many years of experience and were absolutely perfect in their roles. The day before we started the trek, they made sure we had everything we needed. On the trek itself, they were both extremely supportive and encouraging particularly when we found the going tough (day 2 on the steep uphill portion and day 3, on the icy, treacherous steep downhill portion). We enjoyed their enthusiasm for showing us the sights of Ghandruk on day 4 of our trek and the sights of Pokara before and after our trek, though they’d been to the same sights countless times before. We appreciated their openness in answering our questions about life in Nepal and sharing their personal stories. We enjoyed learning from them, in the friendly kitchen of our first teahouse, how to prepare and eat dal bhat! And most of all, we simply enjoyed their company - our chats over lemon tea and the hours of card games we played together. Simply put, we thought that Ramesh and Lama were a wonderful guide and porter and that they were a large part of what made our trek an amazing experience that we will always cherish.

Ramesh encouraged us to come back to Nepal, telling us that Ram could tailor-make a trek to our age and ability by adding extra rest days, and all that was required was the will to do it. But as much as we enjoyed our trek, we thought it unlikely we’d return to Nepal for reasons of age, distance, cost, etc. But, on our arrival home, we kept thinking of how much we enjoyed Ramesh’s and Lama’s company, the fantastic mountain and village scenery, and how challenging our trek was and how rewarding the achievement; we we also read a story in our local newspaper about the Everest Base Camp trek by a man who turned 69 while on the trek! Within days, we decided we’d have to return, and soon - 2013, this time to take on the much bigger challenge of the Everest Base Camp trek. With the help of Ram’s Himalaya Journey company to organize it, and Ramesh and Lama to lead us on our way, we know we'll be successul. See you there!

Iris & Gord (from Canada)

Go back to Review Main page


Location Map